had a royal inspection in mind from the start, and so had taken very great
pains with his selections, which included a scroll of his own Suma and of
his Akashi paintings. Nor was To~ no Chu~jo~ to be given low marks for
effort. The thief business at court these days had become the collecting of
evocative paintings.
"I think it spoils the fun to have them painted specially," said Genji.
"I think we should limit ourselves to the ones we have had all along."
He was of course referring to To~ no Chu~jo~ and his secret studio.
The Suzaku emperor heard of the stir and gave Akikonomu paintings
of his own, among them representations of court festivals for which the
emperor Daigo had done the captions; and on a scroll depicting events
from his own reign was the scene, for him unforgettable, of Akikonomu's
departure for Ise. He himself had carefully gone over the sketches, and the
finished painting, by Kose no Kimmochi, quite lived up to his hopes. It
was in a box, completely modern, of pierced aloeswood with rosettes that
quietly enhanced its beauty. He sent a verbal message through a guards
captain on special assignment to Suzaku, setting down only this verse,
beside a painting of the solemn arrival at the Grand Hall:
"Though now I dwell beyond the sacred confines,
My heart is there committing you to the gods."
It required an answer. Bending a corner of one of the sacred combs,
she tied a poem to it and wrapped it in azure Chinese paper:
"Within these sacred precincts all has changed.
Fondly I think of the days when I served the gods."
She rewarded the messenger very elegantly.
The Suzaku emperor was deeply moved and longed to return to his
days on the throne. He was annoyed at Genji, and perhaps was now having
a gentle sort of revenge. It would seem that he sent large numbers of
pictures through his mother to the Kokiden lady. Oborozukiyo, another
fancier of painting, had also put together a distinguished collection.
<N 8>
<P 314>
The day was appointed. The careful casualness of all the details would
have done justice to far more leisurely preparations. The royal seat was put
out in the ladies' withdrawing rooms, and the ladies were ranged to the
north and south. The seats of the courtiers faced them on the west. The
paintings of the left were in boxes of red sandalwood on sappanwood
stands with flaring legs. Purple Chinese brocades were spread under the
stands, which were covered with delicate lavender Chinese embroidery.
Six little girls sat behind them, their robes of red and their jackets of white
lined with red, from under which peeped red and lavender. As for the right
or Kokiden side, the boxes were of heavy aloes and the stands of lighter
aloes. Green Korean brocades covered the stands, and the streamers and
the flaring legs were all in the latest style. The little page girls wore green
robes and over them white jackets with green linings, and their singlets
were of a grayish green lined with yellow. Most solemnly they lined up
their treasures. The emperor's own women were in the uniforms of the two
sides.
Genji and To~ no Chu~jo~ were present, upon royal invitation. Prince
Hotaru, a man of taste and cultivation and especially a connoisseur of
painting, had taken an inconspicuous place among the courtiers. Perhaps
Genji had suggested inviting him. It was the emperor's wish that he act as
umpire. He found it almost impossible to hand down decisions. Old mas-
ters had painted cycles of the four seasons with uncommon power, fluency,
and grace, and a rather wonderful sense of unity; but they sometimes
seemed to run out of space, so that the observer was left to imagine the
grandeur of nature for himself. Some of the more superficial pictures of our
own day, their telling points in the dexterity and ingenuity of the strokes
and in a certain impressionism, did not seem markedly their inferior, and
sometimes indeed seemed ahead of them in brightness and good spirits.
Several interesting points were made in favor of both.
The doors to the breakfast suite, north of the ladies' withdrawing
rooms, had been slid open so that Fujitsubo might observe the proceedings.
Having long admired her taste in painting, Genji was hoping that she
might be persuaded to give her views. When, though infrequently, he was
not entirely satisfied with something Prince Hotaru said and offered an
opinion of his own, he had a way of sweeping everything before him.
Evening came, and still Prince Hotaru had not reached a final decision.
As its very last offering Akikonomu's side brought out a scroll depicting
life at Suma. To~ no Chu~jo~ was startled. Knowing that the final inning had
come, the Kokiden faction too brought out a very remarkable scroll, but
there was no describing the sure delicacy with which Genji had quietly set
down the moods of those years. The assembly, Prince Hotaru and the rest,
fell silent, trying to hold back tears. They had pitied him and thought of
themselves as suffering with him; and now they saw how it had really
been. They had before their eyes the bleakness of those nameless strands
and inlets. Here and there, not so much open description as poetic impres-
sions, were captions in cursive Chinese and Japanese. There was no point
<P 315>
now in turning to the painting offered by the right. The Suma scroll had
blocked everything else from view. The triumph of the left was complete.
<N 9>
Dawn approached and Genji was vaguely melancholy. As the wine
flagons went the rounds he fell into reminiscence.
"I worked very hard at my Chinese studies when I was a boy, so hard
that Father seemed to fear I might become a scholar. He thought it might
be because scholarship seldom attracts wide acclaim, he said, that he had
rarely seen it succeed in combining happiness with long life. In any event,
he thought it rather pointless in my case, because people would notice me
whether I knew anything or not. He himself undertook to tutor me in
pursuits not related to the classics. I don't suppose I would have been called
remarkably inept in any of them, but I did not really excel in any of them
either. But there was painting. I was the merest dabbler, and yet there were
times when I felt a strange urge to do something really good. Then came
my years in the provinces and leisure to examine that remarkable seacoast.
All that was wanting was the power to express what I saw and felt, and
that is why I have kept my inadequate efforts from you until now. I
wonder," he said, turning to Prince Hotaru, "if my presuming to bring
them out might set some sort of precedent for impertinence and conceit."
"It is true of every art," said the prince, "that real mastery requires
<P 316>
concentrated effort, and it is true too that in every art worth mastering
(though of course that word 'mastering' contains all manner of degrees and
stages) the evidences of effort are apparent in the results. There are two
mysterious exceptions, painting and the game of Go, in which natural
ability seems to be the only thing that really counts. Modest ability can
of course be put to modest use. A rather ordinary person who has neither
worked nor studied so very hard can paint a decent picture or play a decent
game of Go. Sometimes the best families will suddenly produce someone
who seems to do everything well." He was now speaking to Genji. "Father
was tutor for all of us, but I thought he took himself seriously only when
you were his pupil. There was poetry, of course, and there was music, the
flute and the koto. Painting seemed less study than play, something you
let your brush have its way with when poetry had worn you out. And now
see the results. See all of our professionals running off and hiding their
faces."
The prince may have been in his cups. In any event, the thought of
the old emperor brought a new flood of tears.
A quarter moon having risen, the western sky was silver. Musical
instruments were ordered from the royal collection. To~ no Chu~jo~ chose a
Japanese koto. Genji was generally thought the finest musician in court,
but To~ no Chu~jo~ was well above the ordinary. Genji chose a Chinese koto,
as did Prince Hotaru, and Sho~sho~ no Myo~bu took up a lute Courtiers with
a good sense of rhythm were set to marking time, and all in all it was a
very good concert indeed. Faces and flowers emerged dimly in the morning
twilight, and birds were singing in a clear sky. Gifts were brought from
Fujitsubo's apartments. The emperor himself bestowed a robe on Prince
Hotaru.
Examination and criticism of Genji's journals had become the main
business of the court. He asked that his paintings of the seacoast be given
to Fujitsubo. She longed to see what went before and came after, but he
said only that he would in due course show her everything. The pleasure
which he had given the emperor was pleasure for Genji himself. It worried
To~ no Chu~jo~ that Genji should so favor Akikonomu. Was her triumph to
be complete? He comforted himself with the thought that the emperor
would not have forgotten his own early partiality for the Kokiden girl.
Surely she would not be cast aside.
Genji had a strong sense of history and wanted this to be one of the
ages when things begin. Very great care therefore went into all the fetes
and observances. It was an exciting time.
But he was also obsessed with evanescence. He was determined to
withdraw from public affairs when the emperor was a little older. Every
precedent told him that men who rise to rank and power beyond their
years cannot expect long lives. Now, in this benign reign, perhaps by way
of compensation for the years of sorrow and disgrace, Genji had an abun-
<P 317>
dance, indeed a plethora, of rank and honor. Further glory could only bring
uncertainty. He wanted to withdraw quietly and make preparations for the
next life, and so add to his years in this one. He had purchased a quiet tract
off in a mountain village and was putting up a chapel and collecting images
and scriptures. But first he must see that no mistake was made in educating
his children. So it was that his intentions remained in some doubt.
<W Murasaki Shikibu>{Translated by Edward G.Seidensticker}
<T The Tale of Genji>
<K 2>
<C 18>{The Wind in the Pines}
<N 1>
<P 318>
The east lodge at Nijo~ was finished, and the lady of the orange blossoms
moved in. Genji turned the west wing and adjacent galleries into offices
and reserved the east wing for the Akashi lady. The north wing was both
spacious and ingeniously partitioned, so that he might assign its various
rooms to lesser ladies who were dependent on him, and so make them
happy too. He reserved the main hall for his own occasional use.
<N 2>
He wrote regularly to Akashi. The time had come, he said firmly, for
the lady's removal to the city. She was painfully aware of her humble
station, however, and she had heard that he made even ladies of the
highest rank more unhappy by his way of behaving coolly but correctly
than if he had simply dismissed them. She feared that she could expect
little attention from him. Her rank could not be hidden, of course, and her
daughter would suffer for it. And how painful it would be, and what an
object of derision she herself would be, if she had to sit waiting for brief
and stealthy visits. But there was the other side of the matter: it would not
do for her daughter to grow up in the remote countryside, a child of the
shadows. So she could not tell Genji that he had behaved badly and be
finished with him. Her parents understood, and could only add their wor-
ries to hers. The summons from their noble visitor only made them unhap-
pier.
The old man remembered that his wife's grandfather, Prince Naka-
tsukasa, had had a villa on the river Oi to the west of the city. There had
<P 319>
been no one to take charge after his death and it had been sadly neglected.
He summoned the head of the family that had assumed custody.
"I had quite given up my ambitions and fallen quietly into country
life, and now in my declining years something rather unexpected has come
up. I must have a residence in the city once more. It would be too much
of a change to move back into the great world immediately. The noise and
the bustle would be very upsetting for a rustic like me. I need a sort of way
station, a familiar place that has been in the family. Might you see to
repairs and make the place reasonably livable? I will of course take care
of all the expenses."
"It has been deserted for so long that it is the worst tangle you can
imagine. I myself patched up one of the outbuildings to live in. Since this
spring there has been a real commotion, you never saw the likes of it. The
Genji minister has been putting up a temple, several very big halls, and the
place is swarming with carpenters. If it's quiet you're looking for, then I'm
afraid this is not what you want."
"It makes no difference at all. As a matter of fact, I'm rather counting
on the minister for certain favors. I'll of course take care of all the expenses,
the fittings and decorations and all. Just make it your business, please, to
have it ready for occupancy as soon as you possibly can."
"It's true that I've never had clear title, but there wasn't really anyone
else to take over. We've just been following our quiet country ways over
the years. The fields and the rest were going to waste, absolutely to ruin.
So I paid the late Mimbu no Tayu~ what seemed like a reasonable amount
and got his permission, and I've been working the fields ever since." He
was obviously worried about his crops. His nose and then the whole of his
wary, bewhiskered face was crimson, and his mouth was twisted as if in
a growl.
"It is not your fields I am concerned with. You can go on working them
